Debunking the 'No one is traveling' myth

The oft-repeated prediction across the news media last week was that far fewer people than usual would travel over the Fourth of July weekend because of high gas prices.

If the New York State Thruway on Sunday was any indication, the predictions were dead wrong.

Rhona and I left Rochester, headed back toward Kingston, about 2 p.m. Sunday, and the east-west section of the Thruway was as busy as I’ve ever seen it. It got so bad, in fact, after Exit 24 in Albany that we got off at Exit 23 and took Route 9W home from there – something we’ve never felt compelled to do in the 20-plus years we’ve lived in the Hudson Valley.

The Thruway service areas, meanwhile, were absolutely jammed with cars and people, and one of the editors in the Freeman newsroom told me late Sunday that there were reports of southbound traffic on the highway being bumper-to-bumper slow in Ulster County.

And I heard from one of our reporters, who lives in Woodstock, that the town was absolutely packed with New York City folk over the weekend. He described it as looking like Manhattan had relocated to his community.

The bottom line is this: Gas prices are high. No one likes paying between $4 and $4.20 a gallon for what used to cost less than $2. But, unless it means not having enough money for the basic necessities of life, people are not going to let one inflated expense stop them from enjoying themselves.

The Fourth of July weekend proved that, and I suspect the same will be true for the rest of the summer.

About Me

Jeremy Schiffres has been the city editor at the Daily and Sunday Freeman in Kingston, N.Y., since late 1990. He joined the Freeman in early 1988 as a copy editor. A native of Rochester and a graduate of SUNY College at Buffalo, Schiffres' previous newspaper gigs were at The Niagara Gazette in Niagara Falls, N.Y., and The Saratogian in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. If you want to keep his attention, be sure to talk about Buffalo-area sports teams, the highs and lows of Elton John's music career or the finer points of making chili -- or just challenge him to a game of Scrabble. Schiffres, 50, lives in Kingston with his wife, Rhona. Their 19-year-old son, Marc, is a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology.